Project: Tamziq

The Arabic word tamziq can mean dismemberment, the destruction and scattering of a people, or the rending of garments. This project consists of an art exhibit, related public lectures and educational programming, by artists from the US and the Middle East, with a focus on Iraq and the Iraqi Diaspora. Growing out of the work of the Odysseus Project, I am coordinating this project with the Joiner Center for the Study of War and its Social Consequences at UMass Boston*. This project will highlight the connections between communities and conflicts, here and there; bringing together the general public, veterans, students and refugees as both artist and audience.

Project Components:

Artist Network:
Goals: To foster a community of Middle Eastern born and American born artists in Boston

Monthly meetings to discuss issues such as: Current context in Middle East; Identity as it relates to questions of ethnic, religious, national background; Responsibility in current context; Artmaking in response to current context.

Meetings supported by professionals/academics specializing in area studies, art/politics, or other relevant fields.

Work with artist contacts in Basra, Jordan, and Sulaymaniya to create opportunities for exchanges with artists. The purpose of these online conversations is to increase mutual understanding between Iraqi and American artists; to allow US artists who are creating work in response to events in the Middle East to do so with more insight; to offer an exchange of ideas and artistic explorations between peers from different cultures; and to create an opportunity for connection beyond what is afforded by media portrayals of Americans and Iraqis.

To create work for an exhibit in fall 2012, featuring local and international artists: American and Middle Eastern Artists: A Conversation (working title).

With the Fort Point Theater Channel, present readings of plays by Middle Eastern play wrights, and produce Waiting for Gilgamesh, by Amir Al- Azraki (Fall 2012)

Pilot project with students at Montserrat College of Art and the University of Basra. This will form the basis for a discussion of curricular development by educators at the University of Basra, University of Baghdad, UMass Boston, Montserrat College of Art, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, and the New England Institute of Art.

*
The number of Iraqi refugees resettled in the United States has grown from only 202 in 2006 to approximately17,000 in fiscal year 2009. Since 2007, 166,249 Iraqi nationals have been referred to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services for resettlement to the United States. USCIS has interviewed 101,884 Iraqi refugee applicants; approved 84,435 for resettlement and, 58,810 Iraqi refugees have arrived in the United States.[1] This group now forms the largest refugee population in the state of Massachusetts.

The University of Massachusetts Boston enrolls an increasing number of these refugees as well as large number of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The collaboration between the Joiner Center and the Odysseus Project recognizes the increasing need for dialogue and exchange with and within these communities and a further need to broaden understanding of the cultural influences on our changing communities. In the case of Iraqi and other Arabic refugees, there is a continuing need to explore avenues for addressing the impact of war on their communities and cultures; the impact on education; methods for learning; and for discussions based on related topics of gender, human rights, story-telling and differences between American and Arabic perspectives